Internal Migration and the Mental Health of the Older Chinese: Bringing in Migration and Community Perspectives

• In Event: 343 - Section on Medical Sociology Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Section on Medical Sociology Roundtables (one-hour). Table 01. Immigration, Migration, and Health

Abstract

The massive migration of young laborers in China in the recent decades has led to a breakdown of traditional care taking for the rural older population, who have to face long-term separation from their migrant children. Using China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Survey (n=5560), I investigate the relationship between adult children’s internal migration and the mental health of older adults, especially how children’s migration distance may be differentially associated with the depressive symptoms of the older adults. As the role of families as eldercare providers decreases, I further examine the contextual conditions – specifically how community poverty status and services offered by the communities play a role in the mental wellbeing of the left-behind elderly. I find that having migrant children is positively associated with depression symptoms of the older adult, and this association is stronger when their migrant children live outside the province. Community poverty moderates the relationship by producing differentiated buffering effect for the mental health of the left-behind elderly.

Author

• Qian Song, State University of New York-Albany